Built of Dirt and Earth
by Dragon Elexus
Summary: When Pearl managed to dig her way out of her hole and into the open air, she found the Kindergarten deserted. With no instructions and nowhere to go, she waited. And waited. Until finally, someone came. (Earth-born Pearl AU)
1. Birth

**Built of Dirt and Earth**  
 _Chapter One: Birth_

With a sudden, crystal clarity, Pearl became aware of herself.

It was not like waking up. There was no confusion, no sleepiness, no slow dawning of consciousness. It was like a light switching on: everything snapping into place. Where a moment before there had been nothing but inert, mindless rock, there was now a sentient, thinking being.

 _I am a pearl_ , thought Pearl. _I am a Gem. I am alive_.

And then, a moment later, _I must di_ g.

So Pearl did.

oOoOoOoOo

Pearl dug, and dug, and dug. She dug with a simple, methodical certainty. She dug as fast as she could. She got dirt and grit underneath her new formed nails, and in the darkness, she grimaced. She did not like the sensation. She pushed the unpleasantness out of her mind. That did no matter. She had just finished incubating. She could not remain in the ground any longer. She needed to get out.

Finally, fingers scrabbling, she felt the dirt in front of her give way. Her hand broke through into open air. Dim rays of light, the first she had ever seen, filtered into her hole.

Pearl felt herself smiling.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It took only a short amount of time for Pearl to break herself completely free of her hole.

Once she had, she looked around. The huge cavern of the Kindergarten appeared empty. There was no one else there.

She felt the first twinges of uncertainty then.

Pearl pushed that uncertainty down impatiently. No matter. She still had work to do. She looked down at the piles of dirt laying at her feet. It looked horribly untidy.

She pushed all remaining dirt out of her hole, until there was nothing but a perfect imprint of herself left behind her. She took all the loose dirt, and pressed it with her feet it into the ground of the canyon. Nobody came to tell her to stop, so she kept pressing. She pressed, and pressed, and pressed. She pressed until the dirt had been pounded so thoroughly by her feet that it was completely flat, indistinguishable from the rest of the ground surrounding her. Neat. Tidy.

She looked around once more.

Still, she could see no one else.

If Pearl felt the first flickers of anxiety, she ignored them. Pearl did not know a lot, but she knew this: pearls were not meant to be anxious. They were meant to be patient.

So she cleaned out the dirt from under her nails. Then she stood herself straight, folded her hands behind her back, looked forward. And waited.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

Pearl was aware that Gem society ran on a set of standard measurements. There were units for time, for distance, for weight, for energy, for speed. For everything that could ever be cared to be measured. She knew _o_ f them, but she did not _know_ them. As such, she had no given, set unit of time with which to measure how long she waited.

Eventually, she simply decided to make up her own. The concept was uncomfortable- it grated against the very core of her being- but allowing the time to go unmeasured was even worse. After some consideration, she decided to count the periods of light and the periods of dark.

These were by no means a perfect unit, of course. While Pearl had initially had her fears about them being inconsistent, she only realised how much the light-and-dark periods varied in length after she had been using them for so long that she could not change to something more standard. But it was frustrating that as the air grew colder and colder, the periods of dark became longer and longer.

 _This planet's axis must be tilted in relation to its star_ , Pearl reasoned, because she had very little else to do. _There are periods during its rotation where any given area is therefore facing the star, and receives greater amounts of heat and light. During other periods, it faces away, leading to subsequent decrease in both_.

Understanding the reason for the phenomenon did little to make her more comfortable with it.

oOoOoOoOoO

Pearl stood, and waited, through pounding heat and icy frosts, precipitation that fell from the sky, that stung or froze. She did not flinch at any of it, or shiver, or sweat. Just waited, patiently, as was proper for a Pearl.

Or as patiently as she could.

It took, by Pearl's count, four-hundred-and-twenty-three periods of light for her patience to begin to fray.

oOoOoOoOoOoO

It started with exhaustion.

Gems do not need to sleep, of course. But they do get tired, both physically and emotionally. And while standing perfectly straight for such a stretch of time was not physically demanding to a Gem's body, it _did_ pay a toll on their mental state.

So, eventually, Pearl began to nod off.

She jerked into wakefulness. IIf she had had a heart, it would have been pounding, filled with terror. She had no concept of what 'sleep' was. All she had known was that her concentration had wavered. Her body had begun to droop. She had fallen from her post, failed in her only duty.

She could have kicked herself.

She didn't, of course. That would be unseemly.

She merely made herself stand up straighter, and vowed that she would not let it happen again.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

And it didn't. At least, not for another thirty-one periods of light.

After that, Pearl let herself take a step back, and lean against the cavern wall behind her for support.

It was not professional. Pearl promised that when she heard someone coming for inspection, she would step forward and ensure she was standing properly at attention.

The leaning helped. A bit.

oOoOoOo

The waiting wore away at her, slowly. Like water against a rock in a river.

When it finally eroded past some impossible-to-determine point, Pearl's first infraction was to allow herself to look around. Right, left. Up, down. Double check that someone hadn't been there this whole time, after-all, and that she had just managed to miss them.

"Hello?" she whispered. There was no response.

"Hello?" she called out again, this time in a more regular voice. No answer.

Finally, she yelled. "HELLO!?"

All that answered was the echo of her own words.

oOoOoOoOo

It was another fifty-seven periods-of-light until Pearl spoke again. When she did, it was only to say, "Where _are_ you?" 

oOoOoOoOoOo

"Was it something I did?" she asked, some time afterwards.

Of course it wasn't. She hadn't done **anything**. Except dig out of her hole. Everybody had already been gone by the time she did so.

Logically, therefore, it had to be something else.

"Is there- something wrong with me?"

Carefully, she inspected herself. Her torso, her legs, her arms. They all looked fine, Pearl thought. But then, if there was something wrong with her, maybe she wouldn't know.

She raised her hand to her temple. She felt it over with long, sensitive fingers. It was cool and smooth to the touch.

It was also, she realized, oval.

Pearls were meant to be round.

 _Well_ , she thought. _That explains that_.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

Eventually, she convinced herself to go exploring.

Exploring wasn't the right word. Exploring brought to mind Gems far grander than herself, setting sail in space-ships to traverse the galaxy, find new planets. Not a little, lost pearl, taking the first steps around the Kindergarten in which she was made.

But she was so terrified that the two might as well have been the same thing.

 _I'm not meant to move_ , she told herself. Newly incubated Gems were meant to wait for instructions before moving. To do otherwise was wrong. It was **against the rules**.

But she _had_ waited. She'd waited, and waited, and waited. And nobody had come.

What else could she do?

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

And besides, sometimes Pearl liked to think- to imagine- to _hope_ \- that maybe they hadn't deliberately left her. That maybe she was still needed out there, somewhere. That maybe, if she went looking, she'd find other Gems after all, and be able to make herself useful to them. Maybe she'd even be commended for her bravery and her initiative!

It was that thought, ultimately, that set her moving.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

There was not a lot to see in the Kindergarten, but it took Pearl a long time to look at it all. She was meticulous in her examination. She looked at every boulder, every Injector, every crag, every pebble. She did not want to miss anything which might be important.

She walked all along the bottom level of the Kindergarten, seeing everything there was to see, recording everything to memory. It took her seventy-eight periods of light.

She did not find any other Gems.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

She spent a very long stretch of time sitting on a large rock and examining an Injector.

Pearl understood its function. They were for injecting the first spark of life into the soil, deep into the planet's ground, where it was incubate and germinate, and eventually produce new Gems, like her. What she did not know was _how_ it functioned.

The device intrigued her. She desperately wished to know more about it. She wanted to know the exact mechanisms, the calculations, the engineering.

Sometimes, she thought about opening one up, dissecting it, pulling it apart and reverse-engineering it.

 _And what would it matter?_ some terrible, treacherous part of her asked. The Injectors weren't being used. And they were evidently damaged. Perhaps she could fix them.

But no. That was thinking far too highly of herself. She had none of the knowledge required for such a task. And she didn't even have any tools.

And to damage property… How could a pearl even dare?

She instead settled for imagining the mechanisms and shapes inside, piecing them together in her mind. Projections of them blossomed from her gem, giving her light through the many long periods of darkness.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Sometimes, she lay on the rocky ground of the Kindergarten and stared up at the sky.

Down in the cavern, everything was varying shades of purples and greys and browns. But they sky could be so many colours. It could be roiling waves of greys and whites, especially when it rained. It could be a deep, beautiful blue. Sometimes the blue was speckled with white as clouds drifted past. During the dawns and dusks, the sky could turn a million different colours; oranges and purples and pinks and reds.

But her favourite time to watch the sky was on dark, clear nights. Ones with no moon, especially.

That was when she could see stars. They so distant that they appeared as only bright twinkles, nothing like the burning brilliance they must be up close. But they were still beautiful, and Pearl was captivated by every one of them.

That was space. That was where they came from. It was her legacy. It was the _Gems'_ legacy.

Pearl hoped she could see it all one day.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

At one point, she started climbing.

It wasn't difficult, once she'd gotten the hang of it. It was simply a matter of positioning. Of finding places to put your hands and feet. Then, you just had to keep moving.

She eventually reached one of the many holes that had always stared down at her. She peered in, cautious. "Hello?" she said.

As she'd climbed, she'd allowed herself dreams, illusions, of finding someone else in there. Another Gem. Another pearl, even. Just as lost and forgotten as herself. They could work together. Give each other company, perhaps.

But the hole was empty. Whichever Gem who'd been incubated there had left long ago.

Quietly, and for the first time, Pearl began to cry.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

She climbed back down, and huddled by her own hole for exactly thirty-three periods of light.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

It took a long time for Pearl to work up the energy to climb again. When she did, she did not go to explore any of the other holes. She knew she would not find anything inside them. Instead, she set her sights on the level just above. When she reached it, what she saw left her mouth hanging open.

It was a warp pad.

Well, of _course_ there was a warp pad. There had been other Gems here, once, even if there weren't any, now. They would have needed a way to travel here. (And to travel away).

She stared at it, desire burning in her gem, at her temple, throughout her entire being.

She could step onto that pad, and with a single flash of light, go anywhere. Just like that. No more sitting here, or standing around, or waiting, or-

but-

But.

But where would she go? She had no idea. Literally, none. She had no names of places, no destinations. Even if she did, what place would want her? The oval-shaped pearl, so unsuitable that nobody had even came to claim her?

No. No, Pearl couldn't leave. Not by warp, not by foot.

But she couldn't bear to go away and let the pad out of her sight. Instead of returning to her hole, she sat by the inactive warp pad, watched it, and tried very hard not to think, or cry.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Pearl continued to count the days and nights, but if someone had asked, she wouldn't have been able to tell them clearly what she did to fill them.

She walked, sometimes. Or stared at the sky. Or climbed. Or did something almost like dancing, twirling, leaping from boulder to boulder. She created holographic projections, and visualised space-ships flying across the night sky.

Sometimes, when she had no more energy left to stop herself, she slept.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Then, one day- a day which had appeared to be a day like any other- something changed.

The Warp Pad activated.

A bright pillar of light burst up into the sky. There was a loud _whoosh_ which echoed through the caverns. Pearl, surprised and frightened, jumped behind the nearest boulder. She crouched there, fingers digging into the rock. Carefully, she peaked over it. She was at the wrong angle. She couldn't see who had arrived on the ledge above.

She could hear something, though. Very dimly. Footsteps. Voices. She couldn't make out what they were saying.

 _What should I do?_

She slid back down the boulder, then pressed her back against it. Pulled her knees up to her chest. Began to rock slightly.

She should show herself. Of course she should. _Of course_. This is what she had wanted, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

 _But why should I?_ that treacherous part of her whispered in response. _They left me here. Left me. Do they think they can come back and collect me, just like that_?

 _It's my duty_ , she retorted back. _And what else have I to do?_

She sat there, frozen with insecurity, as the Gems from the warp pad approached. She clenched her eyes tight, to stop the burning. She started to rock harder. She didn't realise it, but she was whispering to herself.

As they drew closer, somebody heard her muttering.

"Who's there?" a voice commanded, loud and ringing with authority. Pearl's eyes snapped open.

"Come out," they said. There were heavy, crunching footsteps as they approach. "If you surrender yourself peacefully, I promise that you will not come to any harm."

Pearl swallowed. She felt, suddenly, as if there was something very large stuck in her throat. She disentangled herself, made herself stand up. Rod straight. Head bowed.

She stepped out from behind the boulder, and turned face the unknown Gem.

Despite her terror, the words she'd rehearsed so many times in her head came out came out automatically, certain and steady. "Greetings," she said, hands folded behind her back. "Pearl. Undesignated. Reporting for duty and assignment."

There was no answer.

Pearl waited.

For a little while, at least. But Pearl was done with waiting, so it was not long until she raised her head to look at the Gem who had called for her, but now did not respond.

She was huge. Tall. Towering. A magnificent vision of white and pink, like the most glorious of sunsets she'd ever observed. A mane of hair flowed down past her shoulders. She had a sword in hand, and a shield at her arm.

She was beautiful.

She was staring at Pearl. Not speaking, not saying anything, just staring at her, eyes wide with surprise. Her sword lowered.

" _Oh_ ," said Rose Quartz.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

 **Author's Note:**

First: this entire AU was based on this post by quillandinkpot on Tumblr, suggesting what a Earth-borne Pearl AU would be like. The idea was so wonderful that I couldn't help but try my hand at it.

Second: Endless thanks to my dear friend LadyRavenEye, who beta'd this for me. She is wonderful. 3


	2. Stray Suspicions

**Stray Suspicions**

It was a reconnaissance mission.

Well. Okay. It wasn't even that. Recon meant scouting out new lands and territories, or gaining intelligence about your enemies. But the Kindergarten was well worn, and it was long abandoned, so calling the mission ' _reconnaissance_ ' was stretching the definition to its limits.

This Kindergarten had been the sight of one of the earliest battles of the war. Amethyst had been there, of course. It had been at the top of their list of targets, and its deactivation had been one of the Crystal Gems' greatest victories in the entire war. At that point, the rebellion hadn't been considered anything more than a (frightening) nuisance, so Homeworld hadn't bothered to put up much of a defence. The place had only been defended by a handful of fresh Quartz warriors, stationed there to defend against the remote posibility of attack by organic locals and get basic training before being shipped elsewhere in the galaxy. The rest of the staff had been thinking types- researchers, engineers, maintenance crews, bureaucrats. They hadn't put up a fight. The place had fallen so easily that it was almost _embarrassing_.

Homeworld had never bothered to take it back. While eventually the Kindergarten would be able to supply Homeworld with legions of soldiers, that was a long term goal. Short term, it was too costly to defend. The place had never been designed to withstand the war. Its location had been chosen for its rich soil and high quality quartz deposits, not for strategic positioning. It was low ground, which made it difficult to see incoming attacks and even harder to defend against them. There was almost no room for troops to manoeuvre. The equipment was so delicate that even a determined group of humans could trash it. The Diamonds' plan had been to re-take the area and re-start operations once the rebellion had been fully quashed, and there could be no more risk of damage to expensive equipment.

But the rebellion _hadn't_ been quashed. It had kept going. And so the Kindergarten had turned into a kind of no-Gems'-land, empty even after the war.

Or so it had seemed. But Garnet had been having visions about movement here. Vague ones, sure, which were so unclear that they couldn't provide identities or numbers or even a time-frame, but visions nonetheless. It had been decided that it was too risky to not at least check the area out. There might be survivors.

Amethyst thought the others were jumping at shadows. They were the only ones left on the entire planet. If there _was_ anything here, it was just going to be another corrupted freak.

'Course, those were their job now. Catch and bubble as many corrupted gems as possible, try and find a way to cure them. And those monsters could pack one hell of a punch, so when she and the others warped into the Kindergarten, Amethyst still drew out her whip and proceeded with caution. Sure, the place _looked_ empty, but she hadn't survived this long by being stupid.

The Warp Pad was situated in the dead centre of the Kindergarten, with the deep cavern extending into both the north and south. They made a quick discussion about their plan. Amethyst wanted to stick together, but Rose Quartz said she'd take the northern direction and refused accompaniment. The southern part of the Kindergarten was larger and flared out into two separate caverns; with more ground to cover, it would be better handled by two people. Which was true, but Amethyst wasn't sure she wanted to leave her commander alone in potentially hostile territory.

There was no point arguing, though. She could tell from the look in Rose's eyes that she was in one of her stubborn moods, so Amethyst simply steeled herself, and set off south with Garnet.

The pair of them moved along the cavern's floor, poking and prodding at the various holes and rocks, checking underneath long-abandoned technology. They found nothing of interest- unless you thought that pebbles and rocks were interesting.

"This is a waste of time," Amethyst eventually muttered.

Garnet glanced at her, but said nothing. Amethyst wished she would. She'd been a lot more quiet since the end of the war.

" _Boring_ ," she said, under her breath.

Yeah. This mission was boring. The _Kindergarten_ was boring. Nothing but rocks and rocks as far as the eye could see.

She had to admit, though- to herself, if not the others- that it was a little creepy, too. It was stupid and superstitious of her, but there was definitely an eerie air to the place. The long shadows, the empty holes, the skeletons of destroyed injectors, the complete and utter lack of any life.

The place felt **dead**.

It was growing late, the sun disappearing over the cavern's lip, casting even deeper shadows. Finally, Amethyst muttered, "Ugh, can we just **_go_**? There's nothing here!"

Garnet's pace remained steady. "I know what I Saw."

"Your future vision isn't always right," Amethyst said, even though they both knew that usually it was, one way or another. She just wished that if whatever was supposedly hiding out here would make itself known, so they could get this all over with.

And then, less than a minute later, they heard Rose's voice echoing across the Kindergarten.

"I'll hold posi-" Garnet began, but Amethyst was already racing away.

She broke into a run, picking up speed, accelerating, then transformed into a ball which tore up the rocky group. Everything turned into a blur, but that was fine- Amethyst was honed onto the guiding beacon of Rose's voice, the one which was calling out for someone or _something_ to surrender-

-as if _that_ would happen. As if any of the Gems left on the planet were in any mental state to even understand the _idea_ of surrender! She'd have though that Rose would have understood that by now, but no, too caring to a fault-

Rose stopped speaking. Amethyst pushed down the burst of worry at the sudden silence. There wasn't any sounds of fighting either- but then, that could simply mean that whatever threat it was had managed to take Rose Quartz down so quickly that she hadn't had the chance to strike back. Considering that, Amethyst made herself slow and come out of her roll, even though her every bit of programming was screaming at her to rush forward, go hurtling into danger. Instead, she crept forward on two legs, keeping close to the ground, her whip drawn, ready to spring into motion-

Rose was in the ravine below. She was fine, she was safe, standing tall and undamaged. She was holding her sword, though it was lowered so much that its tip was nearly touching the ground. A terrible position for a fight. But then, she didn't seem to be fighting at all- just talking, in such a quiet voice that Amethyst could barely hear it. But to who? She couldn't tell. Rose Quartz's massive form blocked her view.

"Rose Quartz!" Amethyst called out, sliding down the ridge. "What's happening? What goes here?"

Rose turned her head, and smiled at her. "Don't worry," she said. "Come see."

So Amethyst came forward, still tense, while Rose stepped aside to reveal-

"A _pearl_?"

Rose just nodded. And Amethyst could only stare at the pearl- a tiny, slight little thing, fragile as any, yet somehow whole and unharmed. The first uncorrupted Gem they'd found on the entire planet since the war, and it was a _pearl_.

The pearl didn't do anything but stare at them with wide eyes. When Amethyst met her gaze, she blushed bright blue and quickly ducked her head. Amethyst kept watching the little thing frank amazement.

Well- no, she wasn't _little_. Not really. The pearl was, of course, taller than her, though she was still far thinner and more delicate. But she _appeared_ small, and not just because she was standing right next to the giant Rose Quartz. Somehow, the pearl had managed to find a way of standing that while technically ram-rod straight, nonetheless gave the impression of being hunched over, as though she was attempting to vanish into the background. She seemed to fold in on herself.

Amethyst's mouth hung open for a long moment. A pearl- an _actual_ pearl- not some shards, not some mindless beast-

"Where did she come from?" she asked. "Who does she she belong to?"

The pearl spoke up for the first time. "I'm undesignated, ma'am," she squeaked.

And, yes, Amethyst could see the pearl's grey hair and grey diamond insignia, the marks of a gem who was yet to be assigned. It was just that she wasn't buying them. "Those can be faked. Easily," she told Rose.

Rose's eyebrows rose. "Faked?" she asked.

"Yeah, faked. Could be a spy, sent for recon. See who's left on the planet."

Rose laughed. It was a sound that Amethyst usually adored, but right then, she just found it grating, patronising. "Recon? Who would send a pearl for such a task, not a red-eye?" Despite her playful smile, Rose's eyes were dark. "Besides. We both know that this planet has been left for dead."

As if Amethyst could forget. As if that was any reason to let their guard down.

But she was in no mood to broach those old, tired topics, so instead she said, "Fine. Then where, exactly, did she come from?"

Rose looked genuinely amused. "Oh, come now," she said, making an expansive gesture with her free hand, one that included their surroundings. "Look at where we are."

Amethyst stared around at the scarred landscape around them, then at the pale white pearl. "What? The Kindergarten?"

Pearls weren't like other Gems. They didn't come from Kindergartens. But before greater elaboration could be made, there was the sound of heavy footsteps from the ridge above. Garnet appeared, and gazed down at them. _Finally decided to catch up_ , Amethyst thought to herself.

"The perimeter is secure," Garnet announced, then jumped casually down. The ground shook from the force of the impact. Taken by surprise, the pearl lost her balance, swaying dangerously before managing to steady herself. Her eyes had grown huge with what had to be either awe or terror. Maybe both.

Garnet was quite unmoved, being used to such a reaction. She silently surveyed the stray before saying, simply, "A pearl."

"Is she what you Saw?" inquired Rose Quartz.

Garnet shrugged. "Seems so," she said, not looking away from the pearl. She took a step towards her, placing her massive gauntlets on her hips. "Were you made here?"

"Yes," the pearl said. Her voice was quiet, but it didn't waver.

"How long ago?" asked Garnet.

"I apologize," she said, not meeting Garnet's eyes out of deference. "I kept track of time, but I do not know any of the official units of measurement-"

"Just tell us the best you can," interrupted Rose, voice gentle.

The pearl nodded. "541 periods of light," she said, promptly. "With 542 periods of darkness."

Rose and Garnet exchanged glances. "That's a long time," Garnet said, in a low voice.

"Not that long," Amethyst muttered. She was still gripping her whip tightly. It would take one throw, and she'd have the pearl tied up tight.

Garnet looked at her side-long. "It is if it's the entirety of your existence."

Amethyst was the one who looked away. Garnet had a point. It had been a long time since she had left the Arenas- but she could still remember them with brilliant, white hot clarity. She remembered how at the time it had been impossible to imagine anything past them, how they had been the entirety of her universe.

It must feel very much the same to the pearl, if the Kindergarten truly was all she had know. The place couldn't have been a lot of fun. Not as terrible as the Arenas, but still. Amethyst figured that she'd at least had other Gems to talk to there, even if they had been fighting her a good eighty-percent of the time.

Amethyst shook her head. She wasn't gonna get distracted pitying the pearl, not right then. "So," she asked. "What're we gonna do with her?"

The words seemed to echo through the abandoned Kindergarten, bouncing off the cavern walls and amplifying themselves. Rose and Garnet looked at her. The pearl shrank into herself.

"Well," Rose Quartz said, after a moment. "I thought she would come with us."

A tense silence followed.

The pearl was the one who broke it first. Amethyst was pretty surprised by that. Usually, they ere _'don't speak unless spoken to_ ' types. Maybe that was more down to conditioning and training than she'd ever assumed. "Do you mean- do you mean that I'm to be assigned to your service?"

"Oh, no," Rose said quickly, laughing a little. "Nothing as formal as that. And of course, you don't _have_ to come."

Despite Rose's laughter, the pearl didn't seem at all reassured by the mighty Gem's words. She was obviously trying desperately to hold onto that pearl stoicism, but Amethyst could always recognise fear when she saw it. Amethyst noticed how the pearl's fists clenched, saw how her eyes flickered, briefly, to her forehead. Or rather, to the gem that sat there.

Amethyst followed the Pearl's gaze, curious. It took her a moment to realize. This Pearl's gem wasn't perfectly round and circular, like most. It was elliptical. Misshapen. Baroque. _Defective_.

And then there was Rose saying no, she _didn't_ want this pearl in her service. And of course, this newly formed pebble of a Gem wasn't gonna realise what she meant by that. All the pearl would know was that defective was bad, and that she was bad. She would never have heard of the Crystal Gems or their manifesto.

Amethyst had to resist the urge to face-palm. She loved Rose, she really did, but sometimes she doesn't think through what she's saying.

"What she means," Garnet said, clearly having come to the same conclusion, "is that if you were to come with us, you would be under our protection, but not duty bound to serve us."

Pearl blinked with blank incomprehension. Amethyst could have sighed. Or maybe laughed. They had all grown used to their fellow rebels. This pearl, meanwhile, knew nothing but the rules built into her.

Rules that they still didn't know the whole of. You could program a lot of things into a Gem, if you had the knowledge, the means, and the motive, and Homeworld had all of that. "Are you sure that's the best idea?" Amethyst asked.

"Well, can you think of any other alternatives? We can hardly just _leave_ the poor thing here."

That wasn't what Amethyst was suggesting, and Rose knew it. Instead of speaking outright, however, Amethyst just discreetly formed a circle with he fingers of her free hand.

 _Bubble her_.

It would be a lot less hassle, for a start. The war may have ended, but they still had a lot of work to do. Scouting and clean-up and burials which could take centuries, if not millennia, to fill. There was only the three of them to do it all, and they shouldn't have to waste time on some late-formed pearl, who may-or-may-not have been planted with the intent of somehow sabotaging the the rebellion. At best, the pearl was untrained; at worst, she was a threat.

Besides. if Amethyst was gonna be stuck on a single rock-of-a-planet for the rest of her life, she wasn't sure if she wanted to be stuck with a pearl, of all Gems. Let alone one from the _Kindergarten_ , who had have sucked up the life-force of the very planet they all fought to protect.

Yeah. Bubbling her made a lot of sense. At least for the short term.

But Rose Quartz wouldn't even consider it.

"Ridiculous," she said, with a wave of her hand. "You're being paranoid, my Amethyst. Pearl here has been alone all this time, and she deserves our help."

Amethyst narrowed her eyes. She wasn't so sure of that.

Rose sighed. "Very well," she said. She crouched down, to meet the pearl at something closer to eye-level. "Tell me. You're not going to harm us, are you, Pearl?"

"No!" the pearl said, sounding genuinely shocked and startled. Offended, even. " _No_! I- ?! No, of course not!"

"There we are then," Rose Quartz said, with a nod at Amethyst.

"Besides," said Garnet. There's a ghost of a smile on her lips. "Weren't you just complaining about how bored you were? Now we'll have something new to do."

"Traitor," Amethyst hissed.

"So are you," Garnet retorted easily. She gave a true smile as she finally let her gauntlets vanish.

Amethyst kicked a nearby stone and grumbled.

But just a little bit. She supposed that she couldn't really begrudge Rose for deciding to take a defective Gem into her care, considering.

Besides, when they brought their new charge to the Warp Pad, the expression on her face- part amazement, part giddiness- made Amethyst think that she might be be interesting to have around, if nothing else.

oOoOoOoOoO

 **Author's Note:** Okay, so the first draft of this was sitting in my note-book for months, just waiting for me to get around to transcribing in onto the computer. And then it needed a fair bit of re-writing, because while the basic concepts were down, I'd originally written it before we knew that Amethyst had definitely been found after the war ended. I know this is an AU, but I wanted new Pearl's origins to still reflect canon.

Anyway, if Pearl's a kindergartener, that means that Amethyst is from Homeworld, and I want to explore what ramifications that has on BOTH their characters and personalities.


	3. Departure and Arrival

**Author's Note:** Who's ready for awkward-newborn-foal-Pearl being dazzled by everything, while still trying to figure things out?

Seriously, thank you everyone for your kind comments! They are very much appreciated!

oOoOoOo

 **Chapter Three: Departure and Arrival**

Pearl felt as though the ground was vanishing from beneath her feet.

For so long, everything had been constant. The same. Darkness. Light. Heat. Cold. Again and again, in a continuous cycle. Now there were three new Gems, talking and arguing and asking questions, speeding through things so quickly that Pearl felt dizzy trying to keep up.

 _This is what I was waiting for_ , Pearl told herself. But now that it was finally happening, she wanted nothing more but to retreat back into the security of her hole.

Well. Not entirely. Because when that pink Gem smiled down at her, it was like the dawn of this planet's sun. Pearl could not help but turn her face to its warmth.

When they had first come face to face, the pink Gem had stared at her for such a long time that it seemed although she had become frozen in place. Then, suddenly, the shield on her arm had vanished. She had slowly lowered her sword, and said, "Where did you come from, little Pearl?"

Mutely, Pearl had pointed behind, to her hole. The Gem had regarded it silently, eyes sharp. When Pearl hadn't been able to contain herself anymore, she'd blurted, "Who are you?"

"I am Rose Quartz."

Rose Quartz!

Pearl knew about quartzes. Or the basics, at least. Knew that they were warriors, strong and brave and grand. She hadn't known that they were _beautiful_.

Or at least, Rose Quartz was. But perhaps it is not a trait that applied to all Quartzes, because there is another Quartz in the company who did not seem nearly as glorious, in Pearl's opinion. An Amethyst, Rose Quartz calls her. She was very small, and seemed to have a scowl fixed permanently on her face.

Pearl did not like her.

Not that it mattered, Pearl reminded herself. It was not her place to pass judgements on greater Gems. And if the Amethyst did not look pretty, she did look _fierce_ , which surely was only right for a warrior.

Then there was the other one.

Garnet, the others called her. Pearl did not possess any information on this kind of Gem. She wondered if her ignorance was a side-effect of her defect, or if garnets are a recent invention too new for her to have been programmed with.

Nonetheless, the gap in her knowledge stung. She did not want her incompetence to show. She tried to discern as much about the Garnet as she could. She was significantly taller than both the Amethyst and herself, but shorter than Rose Quartz by a fair margin. Although lithe, she was clearly not fragile in form. When she jumped down, the ground shook beneath her feet, and she wielded massive gauntlets which would be truly intimidating in battle. Though she deferred to Rose Quartz, she still provided her own opinions and insight into the situation. Some kind of soldier or strategist, Pearl speculated. Someone truly worth of respect.

Pearl took this all in as she struggled to keep up with the Gems' discussion. It was very confusing. Rose Quartz had seemed surprised to find her here, and so did the Amethyst, though the latter also seemed wary of her, for some reason. A Quartz, scared of a Pearl! The idea was laughable. The Garnet had apparently seen her before, though, but Pearl did not know when or how. She did not know what Rose Quartz meant when she said that the planet had been ' _left-for-dead'_ , but the words sent a silent shiver through her projected form.

For all her confusion, Pearl knew exactly what was meant when Rose Quartz told her, "You don't have to come, of course."

Fear and failure flooded through her, and it was all she could do to stay standing.

Rose Quartz did not want her.

She was just going to be left here. Alone. _Again_. All that time, waiting in the Kindergarten, thinking that maybe, just maybe, she could be useful and helpful, and already, she's failed, and Pearl did not even know how, except that Rose was laughing and-

She was fighting down the urge to clutch at her misshapen Gem in a vain attempt to hide it from view, when the Garnet spoke. "What she means is that if you were to come with us, you would be under our protection, but not duty bound to serve us."

Her panic subsided, to be replaced with blank incomprehension.

Not… serve? The concept made no sense. Surely the Garnet was mistaken. The Amethyst seemed to agree, because she argued quite fiercely, though Pearl frankly could not follow the specifics. All she knew was that when Rose Quartz dismissed the arguments away with a simple wave of the hand and said, "Pearl here has been alone all this time, and deserves our help," she nearly squeaked out loud.

When, a few moments later, Rose Quartz asked with apparent seriousness, whether she meant them any harm, Pearl **did** squeak out-loud. She could not help herself. She stammered out a polite reply and thought, _As if I would ever!_

The reassurance seemed satisfactory, however, however, because next thing Pearl knew, she was being lead up to the warp pad. Well, carried, in fact. Rose Quartz offered to pick her up, and when Pearl managed a speechless nod, she did. Her arms were softer than anything that Pearl had felt in her life, but she barely had any time to process the sensation before Rose Quartz leaped up the ridge in a single bound. The jump, wonderfully exhilarating, lasted barely more than a moment. Pearl marvelled at the speed as she was placed back down on the rocky ground. She had become very adept at climbing, but it still would have taken her more than ten-times as long to cross the same distance.

The Garnet and the Amethyst landed besides them a moment later. And then, all of them together, they stepped onto the warp pad. Pearl stared down at its shiny blue surface. She was shivering with excitement, but she could hardly stop herself.

She watched closely to see how the Warp Pad was activated. There must be a trick to it, but none that Pearl was able to see; she would have to pay more attention next time. ( _Next time!)_

And then the world she has known her entire life dissolved into blue-white light, and Pearl found herself floating.

It was a strange sensation, terrifying but exciting and not entirely unpleasant. Pearl could have found herself able to enjoy it- if she hadn't noticed that she'd somehow began float above the heads of three other Gems. They were all staring up at her! She felt her face grow hot, and desperately willed herself to move downwards, but nothing seemed to happen.

The Garnet was unreadable, but was Amethyst is snickering, and Pearl was certain that she'd committed some horrible _faux-pas_. But Rose Quartz merely said "Oh dear", grabbed her by the foot, and pulled her gently down to the same level. Pearl was still trying to regain her composure when quite suddenly, the beam of light vanished, and gravity re-asserted itself.

Whatever else, Pearl still managed to land quite gracefully on her feet. What left her breathless was not the fall, but the _view_.

She was in a cave. Surrounded by stone walls in greys and blues, similar to what she had seen her entire life, yet somehow, made a million times more beautiful; shaped into elegant geometric patterns, with glittering crystals growing from the walls. And then, ahead of her, through the cave's mouth was… Well…

Pearl recognized the blue of the sky, and the white of the clouds, and the yellow of the sunlight… but she had never, never, seen that sunlight _dance_ before.

"Welcome," said Rose Quartz, smiling.

"To the base of the Crystal Gems," added the Amethyst, with strange edge to her tone.

Pearl nodded, to show that she was listening, but was unable to draw her eyes away from what she saw.

"I think," said the Garnet, "That she may want a closer look at the ocean."

The ocean, it turned out, was water. More water than she could ever have imagined. In the Kindergarten, there had been times of heavy precipitation, where the sheer amount of water falling onto the sky had seemed never ending. But always, it _had_ ended. Within a few cycles of light and dark, the caverns would be dry again, the water having sunk into the soil, or evaporated away, or simply draining in little rivulets, until it had flowed out of sight.

This must have been where all those rivulets had lead. But still, the sheer volume of water was staggering! And the way the water was constantly moving, waving up and down, crashing in mighty waves where it met the land, reflecting sunlight back up, bright and dazzling…

A heavy weight appeared on her shoulder, and Pearl started; it turned out to belong to the Garnet's hand, with her red gemstone embedded in her palm. "I know," she said, as she withdrew her hand. She was smiling softly. "I was pretty amazed the first time I saw it, too."

"It's beautiful," Pearl said, as another wave rolled in.

"It is," agreed Rose Quartz, while the Garnet nodded. The Amethyst shrugged noncommittally.

Pearl moved forward, placing her steps carefully on the strange, unsteady soil beneath her feet, and approached the ocean. Wind tugged at her short, grey hair, carrying scents she could not put a name to. She came very close to the water's edge, only one more step away.

Rose Quartz came besides, expression warm and sincere. "You can touch it, you know. It isn't dangerous. Not for us, anyway."

Then, to demonstrate, Rose Quartz picked up the trail of her beautiful white dress, and took another step forward into the surf. The water was clear, aside from a little bit of foam and debris kicked up, and Pearl could see the Gem wiggling her toes with delight. Pearl looked down at her own feet, covered in simple grey slippers, squared her shoulders, and followed.

The water felt wonderful- but not as wonderful as when Rose Quartz offered her a hand, to help steady her.

They stayed there for a while- Pearl was not sure how long, her whole sense of time had been knocked out of proportion- but the sun was approaching the horizon when the Amethyst called out to them from the shore. "Hey, Rose? If you ever get bored of splashing around, Garnet and I are heading in. To, you know. _Discuss things_."

Pearl jerked, while Rose Quartz's reaction was much more natural. More fluid. She sighed, and smiled down at Pearl. "Yes. Yes, they're right. This has been wonderful, but I'm afraid we truly do have other matters to attend to." She waved at the pair of Gems at the beach, and began to wade back to them. She paused when she noticed Pearl trailing in her little wake. "You do not need to come, if you so wish."

Pearl froze. "I—"

"You're clearly enjoying yourself," Rose Quartz clarified. "You do not need to cut your enjoyment short on our account. Feel free to enjoy the water for as long as you'd like. Just don't wander too far off. You wouldn't want to get lost." She gave a laugh like the gurgle of water.

"Ah— yes. Thank you." Pearl bowed her head. She stood in place as she watched Rose Quartz return to the shore, and then retreat with the other Gems back into the mouth of the cave.

Perhaps it was wrong of her, but she was… thankful, for some time to herself. She had so much to think about, and it was difficult to focus, with the other Gems around and so much happening.

So much still was happening. This place was not like the constant stillness of the Kindergarten. The water was always moving, shimmering. In the air, flying creatures dipped and dove on the wind. Pearl had seen flying creatures before. They had been small, black things, with sharp eyes, constantly scouring the desolate landscape as if searching for something. They had never stayed very long. If they had seen Pearl move, they'd take flight immediately. Pearl had become quite good at hiding behind rocks, still and silent, to observe them for as long as she could.

 _These_ flying creatures were different. There were more of them, for one thing. She thought they were larger too, though they were far away, so it was difficult to judge. They had bodies in shades of greys and whites, but with pointed mouths of the brightest, most vibrant yellow. They let out harsh ' _caws_ '. Every once in a while, one would dive, plunging its mouth into the water, only to come back out a moment later carrying something silver and wriggling, which would disappear quickly. Pearl wondered what they were doing.

She wondered about many things.

She wondered why Rose Quartz and the other Gems had not taken her into their service.

She could understand if it was for her defect, or for her being so unknowledgeable and untrained, but that did not seem to fit. Why, then, would they have offered her protection? Why would anyone offer _any_ pearl protection? Surely they were not so important as that?

Pearl waded deeper into the ocean, the water rising past her hips, and continued thinking. Why had the Gems being acting so- so wary? On guard? All of them had bore weapons, all of them had watched the landscape anxiously, as if at any moment, something might jump out of them. As if _she_ might jump out at them.

And why were there so few Gems?

Three Gems. Three. Two Quartzes, and a Garnet. Not even a mention of any others.

' _This planet has been left for dead'_.

The sky turned darker as she considered the meaning of the words. Left for dead? As in, abandoned? But why? And by who? And why had these Gems remained behind?

Was it the same reason that the Kindergarten had been left so empty? Was there an explanation for why she had been left there, lurking just out of her sight?

Pearl clutched her bare arms to her chest, feeling suddenly quite chilly- though of course she could persevere in temperatures far colder than this, and had. Night had fallen properly, now. There was no more warm sunlight shining down. There was not even any stars out- or rather, there were, but they were hidden behind clouds. Sometimes they would shift, and reveal a brief glimpse of white light reflected off the planet's moon.

Somehow the ocean seemed even larger now. It seemed to loom in front of her. Pearl glanced back to land, just to reassure herself it was still there. It was, of course. She hadn't gone far. The dark mass of the sloping mountains could still be seen. She balled her fists, and turned her attention back to the water.

She saw a dark shape swimming beneath the surface.

Pearl let out a yelp, jumped out of the water, and gracelessly, fled back to the safety of the shore.

Once she reached there, she felt terribly foolish. Jumping at shadows! Ridiculous. And after Rose Quartz had said the ocean posed no threat to her.

 _But she is a Quartz, a strong warrior,_ a small voice reminded her. _And you are only a pearl._

Perhaps that voice was right. Or perhaps she had been foolish, and should have stood her ground. Nonetheless, Pearl found that she had little desire to return back to the ocean. Not now, at least.

So what should she do? Rose Quartz had said she was free to enjoy the water for as long as she had liked. She hadn't given any instructions on what to do afterward.

Quickly, she decided that she must find Rose Quartz and be advised further.

She headed up the slope towards the cave that is the base of the 'Crystal Gems', as they had called it. Her eyes strained in the darkness. She could make out the rising black shadow of the mountain the cave was built into; it reminded her keenly of her hole, back in the Kindergarten. And like the whole, when she reached the cave, she found it empty aside from herself.

"Hello…?" she called out, in a voice which was scarcely a whisper. Nobody answered. She stared around the cave once more with wide eyes, just in case she had missed someone- but the cave is not very large. She had not.

She came to stand at the base of the warp pad. Had they gone somewhere else? She felt an edge of panic. She hoped not. If so, there would be no hope of her finding them.

Then, behind the warp pad, on the hall, she noticed something. She came closer to investigate. Etched into the grey-blue stone was a shape like an archway. In the middle, there were four blue circles, each a different colour, forming a square. Pink, which was for Rose Quartz, certainly. Purple for the Amethyst. The red must be for the Garnet. Pearl did not know who the blue circle could represent; perhaps there was another Gem around after all?

She pressed her hands against the stone, to see if nothing happened. Nothing did, but she had scarcely suspected anything to. The arc appeared to be a magical gateway, coded to each individual Gem's energy signature. It was locked against her entry.

But this, surely, was where the other Gems had gone. Pearl was certain if she waited there, it would only be a matter of time until someone emerged, and she could ask for further instructions.

She took up her post next to the doorway, eyes straight forward, back straight, confident in the knowledge that this time, her diligence would not go to waste.


	4. Recollections

**Author's Note:** This chapter has a lot more direct references to death and war. Nothing graphic, but please be warned if you're uncomfortable with those topics.

oOoOoOoOo

 **Chapter Four: Recollections**

There's not a lot to talk about, once they get back inside the Temple.

Okay. No. There's actually a lot to talk about. It's just that Rose Quartz isn't in much of a mood for a discussion.

"We're keeping her," she says, without preamble, once they're all inside. She says it to all of them, but Amethyst knows the comment is directed specifically at her her.

She throws up her hand. "Yeah, yeah, I _got_ that. I've still got questions, though."

"Such as?" asks Rose.

"Well, how she got there for one," says Amethyst. "I know, I know, the Kindergarten. But Kindergartens sure aren't the same thing as a pearl nursery."

Garnet's looking thoughtful. "There were rumours."

"Rumours of what?"

"Of experimentation. Sapphire heard of it, before— before," she says. "The Earth's ecosystems produce some very unique geological effects, and with the high abundance of water, it was speculated that in addition to the high quartz deposits, the mineralogy of the planet would also lend itself to efficient pearl production."

Rose hums thoughtfully, but Amethyst scowls. "If that's true, how come this is the first I've heard of it?"

Garnet shrugs. "Sapphire only heard hints, but I know it wasn't a particularly popular plan. Quartzes were considered a more important product, and you can imagine why certain individuals would have a vested interest in preserving pearls' rarity."

Amethyst snorts. Yeah, she can. She's never much gotten their appeal, but pearls were always a rare commodity on Homeworld. Lesser courtiers would pull a lot of string for the chance to order a shiny pearl of their very own, just to prove to everyone how Great and Important they were. If pearls suddenly became a lot easier to produce— to the point where every single foot-soldier and crafts craftsgem could have one— suddenly the pearls already in existence would look a heck of a lot less impressive. A wasted investment.

Well, all those self-obsessed snobs hadn't needed to worry, it seems. Rose speculates that they must have only Injected a small sample of pearl gemetic code for a proof-of-concept experiment. Amethyst knows she's not exactly a scientist, but even she can tell that the experiment wouldn't have been considered much of a success. The formation process hadn't exactly been fast, and all it had managed to produce was a single measly Pearl— a _baroque_ one at that.

Not that the experiment's failure mattered. The whole thing had been abandoned, along with the planet.

Amethyst's still not completely sure if taking the Pearl in is the best move. There's still a chance that things aren't what they seem; that she's some sort of spy from Homeworld, or that there are ulterior motives at play. That said, Amethyst's also willing to accept that this is just her paranoia talking.

Besides… She can recognise the glow in Rose's eyes. She hasn't been this excited since the war ended. Amethyst can't take this from her.

So. They have a Pearl now, and that's that.

They briefly discuss other matters, but it's not like there's been any progress. They're still no closer to locating the remains of their shattered comrades. There are countless corrupted Gem monsters running wild across the planet, but their whereabouts are also either unknown, or found in such high densities that it would be near foolish to take them head-on. Rose is still no closer to devising a way to cure them.

She has ideas, of course. All sorts of experiments, churning in her brilliant mind. But Amethyst can't help but glance up. Floating among the capillaries of the Crystal Heart are seven bubbled Gems. Just a temporary containment measure, until they find a better alternative. A way to save them.

But Amethyst has a sinking feeling that 'temporary' is going to be longer than they bargained for.

With that, the 'meeting' is dismissed. Garnet goes off to some stray corner of the Temple to meditate or make-out in her head, or whatever it is she does in her spare time. Rose retreats into her own room. Amethyst seriously considers following her… but no, she's not in much of a mood for conversation, and she thinks that Rose could use some alone time as well. Instead, she heads off to her own chamber.

Her _own chamber_. That's a phrase that still keeps taking her by surprise.

When what remained of the Crystal Gems decided to set up a permanent base of operations after the war, the main function was simply to provide somewhere protected to store bubbled Gems and other retrieved magical artefacts. They had placed such a sheer amount of energy into the mountain when constructing the fortress that they had ended up producing a great deal of extra dimensional space. It had only seemed natural to divide what space remained so that each of them could have their own personal areas.

Amethyst still doesn't know if Garnet has even bothered making her own room, or rooms. She seems happy enough using the Burning Room at the Temple's heart. Maybe it's more complicated with fusions, or maybe she doesn't see the point; Garnet's always had this air about her, like there's a whole world happening right inside her mind. Rose Quartz had happily set up her own room, but she's been hugely indecisive with it. It's different, every single time Amethyst visits. Rose builds gorgeous landscapes and sprawling vistas, inspired by the many speculator environments provided by Earth. (Always Earth. Never anywhere else in space).

Amethyst, though. Amethyst had known what what she wanted almost immediately. Or, at least, some part of her had.

When her room had first been created, it had been nothing but a huge cavern of plain grey rock, interspersed with natural growths of purple crystal, jutting randomly from the ground. Since then, it has morphed, slowly and deliberately, into the circular form of an arena. A huge, wide open space, perfect for fighting, ringed with columns and weapons.

But it is not the same as the arenas she fought in, before. It has none of the same stifling symmetry, or perfect smoothness. The columns are not tall, delicately carved pillars of marble, inscribed with ancient commandments and proclaimments of the Diamonds' glory. In their place, instead, are tall jagged stalactites of the same purple crystal, rough and natural. While there are racks of weapons mounted on the walls between each column, they are not elaborate, showy displays. While there is an order to them, it is one entirely of Amethyst's own.

And, of course. There are walls. No open space for Gems to fall— or be thrown— off from.

Amethyst looks up, and is met with only the dark grey rock of the cavern. No stars, no clouds. It's an arena, but it most certainly _not_ a Sky Arena.

She goes to the closest of the weapons displays, surveying her collection. She's amassed quite a lot in a relatively short time. There are a lot of old battlefields to loot, and unlike the warriors that once wielded them, the fallen weapons haven't all run away.

Amethyst doesn't need weapons. Not anymore, not really. After learning to summon whips straight from her gem, they became mostly obsolete. You never have to worry about losing or breaking your summoned weapon, because you can always just instantly create another one. Neither is there any chance of your enemy being able to steal it from you. Amethyst has some fond memories of those first few battles when Homeworld still hadn't understood the Crystal Gem's new abilities, where she'd let an enemy soldier get ahold of her whip and think they'd got the advantage of her… They would come in on the tiny, defenceless runt, bearing down with a stolen weapon— only to find at the last moment that said weapon had suddenly vanished in from their hand, with the 'defenceless runt' wielding it instead. She'd taken immense pleasure in wiping the smug grins off their faces.

She'd only been able to turn the tables on them like that a handful of times before Homeworld had caught on, but it sure had been fun while it had lasted.

So, yeah. Her whip is great. It's fast, versatile, great at both middle and short-distance fighting, excellent for taking the enemy for surprise. It feels more natural in her hands than any other weapon she's ever wielded before, and that's saying a lot. But Amethyst likes knowing she has other options available, just in case.

Besides. It hadn't felt right, just to leave them all there.

She's inspecting a particularly large portion of of her collection, boasting a true hodgepodge of weapons. Nothing like the neat, orderly armouries of Homeworld, where they keep like with like; here she has swords, blades, bows, hammers, gauntlets, even catapults, all together, side-by-side. She collected them all from the same location— The Strawberry Battlefields, as she calls it in her head. The most effective weapon in that fight hadn't been anything forged, after all; it had been Rose's tremendous army of sentient plants. A good portion of enemy Gems had gotten caught beneath the sudden onslaught of thorny vines, the ultimate deciding factor in a long, exhausting fight.

Amethyst touches her hands against the collected weapons. She can remember many of them from the day. There's a dirke that one of their own Jades had been particularly fond of… A massive club that had been aimed right at Rose's gem, before Amethyst had been able to take out its wielder… A collection of charred arrows that look as though they were trampled over by a pontoon of Rubies… There's a truly gigantic ax, purple in colour, marking it for use by an Amethyst. Not her, of course— she would need to fuse a good three times over to be large enough to even pick it up. The only reason she'd even managed to get it here at all was with Garnet's help, and the thing had looked comically large even next to Rose.

Amethyst scowls, and turns next to the next weapon. Another ax, but very different than the last. Smaller, for one. Much smaller. And light, too, with barely any heft. That's because of what it's made of— ordinary rock and wood.

It's not a Gem weapon. It's a human one.

There'd been a small human encampment near the sight of the Strawberry Battlefields. Maybe three hundred of the creatures, in total. Relatively peaceful, for their kind. They'd built houses out of wood, which they'd chopped down using axes like these.

Far as Amethyst knows, not a single one of those humans had survived the crossfire. Not even their buildings had. This ax was one of the only intact things Amethyst had found among the ashes.

Her fist closes tight around its hilt, threatening to shatter it. Amethyst makes herself release her grip, and put the ax back onto its place on the wall. She turns around.

She needs some space.

A door materialises on the wall in front of her. She stomps through it, into the refreshingly cool beach air. There's a sucking sound as the Temple door closes behind her, and Amethyst sees the smallest snatch of movement out of the corner of her eye.

She stomps down on her instinct screaming at her to draw her weapon, and she's glad she does, because when she turns for a better look, she sees that it's just the Pearl. A Pearl who's trying very hard to hide how startled she is, and is only mostly succeeding. She's trying damn hard, though; back straight, head slightly bowed in deference, hands clutched to her chest, the picture of pearl modesty.

"Oh, geez," Amethyst says, as a thought occurs to her. "You haven't been standing here this whole time, have you?"

The Pearl's voice is a quiet murmur. "Nobody told me what to do, ma'am."

"Rose said said you could keep swimming."

Pearl says nothing, staring at her with an expression of creeping embarrassment. Amethyst decides to try a different tactic.

"Look," she says. "It doesn't even matter what you're told to do, okay? You can just do whatever you want."

"But…" Pearl begins, without seemingly know what so say next.

Amethyst crosses her arms. "I mean it. Rose meant it too, when she brought you in. We don't own you. You're your own Gem. So, what do you want to do?"

Pearl's staring at her, with very large eyes that shine in the pale dawn light. "What… do _I_ want?"

Amethyst is struck with a heavy sense of deja-vu, and suddenly, she's back in Rose's garden, a thousand years ago, holding a wild-haired, wild-eyed Garnet at sword tip. Amethyst blinks the vision away, and says, "Yeah. Come on, tell me."

"I'm... I'm not sure." She wrings her hands nervously. "Um… what were you going to do?"

Amethyst narrows her eyes. She doesn't want this Pearl trailing around her like a baby duckling. "I'm going patrolling."

"Patrolling?"

"Yeah, patrolling," says Amethyst. "Patrolling the perimeter of our base, to look out for monsters."

"… monsters?"

"Yep. Monsters. This planet is _full_ of them. Huge things, big teeth, could shatter a Gem with a single bite."

Pearl blinks at her, somewhere between frightened and doubtful. "I've never seen any monsters before."

Amethyst gives a bark of a laugh. "Yeah, well, you haven't really seen much of anything."

The Pearl ducks her head, a blue blush crawling up her pale cheeks. And then she says, "Could I come with you?"

"What?" says Amethyst.

"You're right. I haven't seen anything. I would- I would like to rectify that. So, so, if what you said is true," she squares her shoulders, "I would like to go with you on patrol."

Amethyst stares. The Pearl can't go with her! She's not a warrior, she's a Pearl!

… except, of course, Amethyst's a Crystal Gem, and she knows it doesn't work that way. She knows that's not what they fought for, knows that Rose would be disappointed at her for thinking such things. But still!

"It'll be dangerous," Amethyst says, even though it most likely won't be.

Pearl wrings her hands some more. "But… you'll be able to protect me, won't you?"

She's sorely tempted to say 'no', but her pride gets the better of her. "Yeah… Yeah. Nothing out there I can't handle."

"So… Can I come?"

The look on her face is too bright for Amethyst to smother. Besides, if something _is_ up with this Pearl, this could be a good chance to find out. "Yeah… okay, fine. You can come. But no wandering off, okay? And you'd better not slow me down."

She nods vigorously, and with that, the pair sets off towards the cave mouth— one half more enthusiastically than the other.

oOoOoOoOo

 **Author's Note:** Thanks for all the kind words, everybody! Your support really means a lot. 3

I have a head-canon that Pearls are made in a slightly different way than other Gems, to further explain why they're looked down upon, and to reflect how real world pearls come from oysters. I'm particularly fond of the Nacre (Mother of Pearl) sub-theory, but I wanted to keep it ambiguous here.


	5. Exploration

**Chapter Five: Exploration**

First the Amethyst lead them on a short walk down the beach's shifting sand, and Pearl was pleased to find that she was already learning how to keep her balance on the strange surface. Then the Amethyst stopped, pointed straight up the cliff-face and said, "That's where I'm heading. Think you can handle the climb?"

There was a challenge in her tone, and Pearl grinned at it. So much was confusing in this wider world, but this, at least, was one thing she could do. She has had a _lot_ of practice in cliff climbing.

A quick scan of the rock was all it took for her to identify holds, and then she sprung forward, feet and fingers easily digging into crevices. The Amethyst blinked after her, unbalanced, then rushed to close the gap. They reached the top at almost the same moment. Pearl beamed with pride as she hoisted herself over the ledge.

"Not too bad," the Amethyst muttered, dusting herself off.

Pearl glanced down from where she just came— not too far, all things considered. Then, looking back up, she caught a view of the ocean, and gasped.

She had already known it was big. But from up here, it seemed even _bigger_. The water just stretched on and on and _on_ , right to the horizon where the first light of this planet's sun was beginning to creep over. The sheer size of it was dizzying.

"There's so much," she breathed.

"Tell me about it," said the Amethyst. "I've never _seen_ a planet with this much water. Practically the whole surface is covered in the stuff."

A shock ran through Pearl. Amazement, astonishment— and annoyance at herself for not realising it sooner. The Amethyst had been to other planets. Of course she had— she was probably from other planets! Pearl's head jerked up towards the still dark sky. The clouds from earlier were gone,

Her head jerked up, up to the still dark sky, and now the stars and a sliver of moon were clearly visible. Same ones as in the Kindergarten, in all the same arrangements. How many has this Amethyst visited, seen up close? What stories could she tell? Pearl was seized with questions, the desperate desire to _know_ —

"Come on. Can't just stand here gawking," the Amethyst said, brisk. She started off immediately. Pearl jumped to keep up.

They were at the top of what might have been hill, might have been a mountain— Pearl had no scale with which to judge. The slope was gentle, and it was covered in— something. Not rock, or sand, or gravel. Pearl could feel it through the thin material of her shoes. Something soft and long, sticking up all pointy. Amethyst's pace was quick, but Pearl's strides were longer, so she risked taking the time to pluck a piece as she followed. She rubbed it between her fingers. The stuff truly was thin, smooth— not as smooth as her gemstone, or the metal of the Injectors, but far smoother than the rough surface of most rock. It had a smell to it, as well, something indescribably fresh and foreign—

"It's called grass," said the Amethyst.

Pearl tried not to jump. "Oh," she said. "Thank you very much."

They continued. Amethyst surveyed their surroundings. Pearl glanced up occasionally, wary of the monsters Amethyst had warned her of. But there were none in sight, and her attention kept being drawn back to the blade of grass she held.

"…What's it for?" Pearl eventually hazarded.

"Huh? It's not for anything." Pearl looked blank, and Amethyst sighed. "I mean, some animals eat it, I guess. And humans make things out of it. But mostly it just grows. Exists."

How peculiar. Pearl had never really thought about things just existing, without purpose. She had so much to learn.

What were 'humans'? 'Animals'? And what did it mean, that they 'eat' grass?

"This planet has a lot of plant life. Look, there. See?" Amethyst pointed towards something jutting out from the ground in the distance. Its base was thin, but its upper part was big and fluffy, like hair. "That's called a tree. It's like grass, but bigger."

Pearl looked at the tree critically. It had seemed rather small, but when they got closer, Pearl found it twice as tall as herself. She could see very little similarity between it and the grass. Amethyst took a detour in the patrolling to let Pearl take a closer look. Her impression didn't immediately change. The base of the tree felt very much like rock, very rough, though not as a hard. It was only when she inspected the upper part of the tree that she saw what Amethyst had meant. The upper portion was not covered in hair at all, but grass— huge pieces of it, bigger and broader than the ones covering the ground, but made from the same material.

There were _things_ on the tree. Little moving things, smaller than her finger, with six tiny legs and little waving points on their head. They marched in a neat, orderly line down the tree's side. Pearl placed her finger in front of one, and it climbed right on top. The sensation tickled, strange but not unpleasant. She watched it, fascinated.

That was just the start. There were _so many_ new things! There were other little creatures in the grass, almost impossible to catch, which made a near continuous buzzing sound. She spotted another one of the flying creatures, this one smaller, faster, with huge ears. It made these regular, high-pitched squeaks, almost beyond the range of hearing.

The star was rising then, everything becoming brighter, the world resolving into new colours. Pearl discovered that the landscape around them wasn't all just in shades of greys and black— the grass was green, the tops of the trees brown, while their bases were deep, rich browns. And there were other plants in the grass, shocks of white and reds. and purples. The warm pink of dawn was here, not just above her, but all around, everywhere she looked. Pearl began moving faster and fast, flitting from thing to thing, desperate to take it all in.

There was a rock covered in a green fuzz. Another kind of grass, Pearl had thought, but when she touched it sound found the texture utterly different, soft and fluffy and wet. It was kind of gross, in all honestly, and yet she couldn't help but stop to poke at it.

"Oh, stars," the Amethyst moaned. "You're almost as bad as Rose."

Pearl tensed.

"You've got the _exact_ same look she had when we first landed on this planet. Even now she'll still drag me off to look at random slug or whatever." She crossed her arms. "You two'll probably have a blast."

Pearl perked up. While there was something unclear in the Amethyst's tone, it seemed she was being compared to Rose Quartz, and that could only be a compliment.

They continued on the patrol. Aside from the occasional stops when Pearl noticed something she wanted to investigate, the Amethyst's pace was relentless. Pearl found herself fighting to keep up. Her legs were longer, yes, with one of her strides matching almost three of the Amethyst's, but somehow the Quartz was still moving faster. Pearl was so accustomed to just… doing nothing, for such long periods of time at sudden, continuous exertion was exhausting.

But she wouldn't falter. She refused to.

There were so many new sensations— the _woosh_ of wind, the distant droning hum, the smell of grass and salt and a hundred other unidentifiable things, the need to focus on her feet so that she wouldn't trip— that when she felt something twist inside of her, Pearl didn't immediately react.

The Amethyst did, though. She halted, dead in her tracks. Pearl nearly ran into her.

"What—?"

" _Shh_."

"Sorry," Pearl said, quieter. "What is it?"

"Feel that?" the Amethyst asked, tapping at her gem. And Pearl did, deep inside her own. A strange, faint sensation… a _vibration_ , almost. She'd felt such rhythms before, around these Crystal Gems, on a barely conscious level. Rose Quartz, swelling and gentle. The Amethyst, a constant pounding. The Garnet, notes high and low, together in harmony. But this one… this one was off, _somehow_. Grating. "That means there's a monster nearby."

Pearl's eyes swept the still shadowed landscape. It was still. "Where?"

The Amethyst frowned. "Don't know," she said. "Stay behind me. When we find it, _keep back_."

A purple light burned at the Amethyst chest, and a long whip appeared in her hands. Her eyes seemed to burn to, and Pearl got the sense of barely constrained energy, of _eagerness_.

Pearl just felt nervous.

But she moved on regardless, following the Amethyst's lead, keeping low to the ground. She could feel that sensation, the _not-song_ in her gem, growing stronger. The monster was nearby, it had to be, but—

The grass was gone, the ground beneath her feet suddenly uneven. Pearl nearly tripped from the change. And then, the ground _shifted_.

Pearl was fairly certain that this was not normal. Her suspicions were confirmed when the Amethyst screamed at her to _run_.

So she did. And before her rose this giant, massive _monster_ —

Pale white skin, strange and translucent. Wide blue eyes. A strange crest around its head, blue fleshy offshoots that were growing and stretching into tentacles—

No, not tentacles. Whips. The creature released a horrible groan, and three of them came flying right at her.

But the Amethyst was there, with a whip of her own. The creature bellowed with pain when it hit. Pearl staggered back; the Amethyst plunged forward. Kicking, punching, whip flying, she assaulted the beast. The thing tried to fight back, swiping with big, clumsy claws, but the Gem dodged easily, rolling out of the way— then actually _rolling_ , turning into a sudden swirling blur, zooming away, building up speed, then coming right back, charging right at the monster. Pearl flung herself back further just as the Amethyst collided.

There was a mighty _splat_ , followed by an explosion of dust. But the beast's strange hide was thick, and the impact did little damage. The Amethyst was left lying on her back, winded. As she struggled back to her feet, the monster pinned her down beneath one of its massive feet.

And then it turned its ugly stare onto Pearl.

Pearl, petrified, could only watch as the tentacles shot right at her—

A bright, brilliant, pink light, and _crack_ , the tentacles were smashed, never reaching here.

There was a barrier before her. Turning to look up, Pearl found the source; Rose Quartz, bold and beautiful, her gem aglow, her face radiating confidence. Next to her was Garnet, gauntlets drawn, lips drawn back in a snarl.

The beast was already recoiling before Amethyst managed to throw it off her. Then the shield dropped, and the other Crystal Gems charged.

It was amazing.

They worked in such perfect synchronisation. Garnet barrelled straight in, pummelling the creature with her fists. Amethyst jumped in-and-out, landing sharp strikes with her whip, refusing to be caught a second time. And if, by chance, either of them were, Rose Quartz was always there with her shield at the ready, protecting them from all harm. And it the end, it was was she who took her huge pink sword and plunged it right through the monster's back. The beast flailed and screeched, then disappeared with a sudden _poof_. All that was left was a glittering blue gemstone. Garnet picked it up, summoned a red bubble around it; then both gem and bubble vanished, as if they had never been there at all.

Pearl was left gaping.

She had almost— But they had— How had they?— Could _she_?—

"Pearl, Pearl," Rose quartz was calling, coming close. "Are you alright?"

"No— I mean, yes, yes, I'm fine," Pearl assured her, still dazed.

Amethyst was wiping her pants. "Relax. I kept her safe. And I was handling it myself."

"Didn't want to take the risk," said Garnet. Amethyst sighed.

"Pearl?" Rose Quartz asked again. Pearl was still staring. "Are you _certain_ you're fine?"

"I…" Pearl began. And then, "Can _I_ learn how to fight like that?"


	6. Lessons

**Lessons**

The first thing Pearl wanted to learn was how to summon her own weapon.

It had been amazing, watching the Crystal Gems in battle. Not just the way they had moved, the way they had weaved in and around one another, but the weapons themselves. Whip and gauntlet and shield, working in perfect harmony, always exactly where they were needed. Pearl wanted to be part of that. Pearl wanted to have that same strength, that same power.

"What weapon you think I'll have?" she asked excitedly, once the other Gems had agreed to teach her.

The Crystal Gems exchanged looks. "We don't know," Rose Quartz admitted. "It's different for everyone. We'll just have to see."

She began lessons with each Gem, on their own, as they talked her through what to do. Or rather, as they _tried_ to.

Amethyst's explanation wasn't very helpful at all. She just said, "I think about it, and my whip show's up."

"That's it?" said Pearl. Amethyst shrugged.

"There must be more to it than that!"

"Nope. I just focus, and there it is." She summoned her whip in demonstration, then cut a nearby boulder in half with an easy slice.

Garnet's approach was more substantive, at least, but also more confusing. "You must connect your mind with all existing matter"— "channel the coursing power of the universe"— "focus on the connection between yourself and all living beings"—

Pearl didn't even know what that _meant_. And she tried, so really did, but just looking out across the ocean she left her feeling overwhelmed. She'd never been off planet, and she had seen so little of even this one tiny world— just trying to fathom the entire universe, the sheer size and scope of it, left her feeling dizzy.

She had been excited— very excited— for her lesson with Rose Quartz. Such a magnificent, impressive fighter, the leader of the Crystal Gems… surely she would know better than anyone? Surely she would be able to explain it to her? She would be able to teach her the grand, important trick behind weapon summoning.

"Love," Rose Quartz said.

"What?"

Rose smiled knowingly. "It took me a long time to realize, too. But you see, my weapon is a shield." In demonstration, it appeared in her lap, pink and shining and beautiful. Rose began to trace its curves with a gentle finger. "Something inherently protective. That protectiveness is what I need to feel, in order to summon it. Care for other creatures, the desire to save and protect them."

Pearl blinked. "So you're saying that I need to… protect someone?"

Rose shook her head and laugh. It was a beautiful sound, but it made Pearl feel very small and silly. "Well, that's a noble goal, certainly," said Rose. "But in order to summon _your_ weapon… no. I don't think that's quite what you're going to need."

Pearl slammed her fist onto her knee, with a suddenness that shocked even herself. She felt like screaming from the frustration. "Then what _am_ I supposed to do? Everyone gives different answers!"'

"Because it's different for everyone, just like I said." Rose's voice was infinitely patient; she hadn't even flinched at Pearl's undignified outburst. "Our weapons reflect us, as _individuals_. Garnet synchronises with external forces and draws power from them. Amethyst is a fighter, never hesitating in battle. So the question we need to ask is not 'what is your weapon', bur rather— 'who are _you_?'"

 _A lost pearl_ , Pearl thought.

But aloud she said, "I don't know."

"That's okay," said Rose, reaching out a gentle hand and laying it on Pearl's knee. "Be patient, and you'll find out."

Well, if there was anything Pearl could be, it was patient.

oOo

While working on how to summon her weapon, Pearl also began training with traditional, physical ones— the kind that didn't come from a Gem's own being, but was forged separately. These didn't seem nearly as interesting to Pearl, but all the others thought it was important for her to build a foundation, so she agreed to the lessons without complaint.

Amethyst was her main instructor. She had amassed a truly impressive collection of weaponry, and Pearl was amazed by the sheer variety of forms— all different sizes, shapes and, presumably, functions.

During their first session, Amethyst surveyed it all, hands on hips. "Okay," she said. "We have no idea what your weapon is gonna be, so specialising is a bad idea right now. Let's work on getting you a base proficiency in as many weapons as possible."

That seemed logical to Pearl, but had had to confess, privately, to be rather disappointed. She didn't want to have a 'base proficiency'. She wanted to be a _master_.

But Amethyst was the warrior and the expert, so she waited patiently as the quartz stomped around the room, deliberating, before passing Pearl a simple staff.

Pearl stared at it. It was made out of a long, purplish metal. It wasn't particularly heavy, and it had no blades or spikes or anything that looked dangerous or threatening. It was old, bearing chips and scrapes from old battles. "This?" she asked, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

"Yep," said Amethyst easily.

"But…" Pearl gave a longing glance at the walls of weapons surrounding her— everything from gauntlets to slings to flails. Things that looked like _proper_ weapons. "What about…?"

"Begin with the basics. Then you can start to get fancy. Now, look, you're holding it all wrong…"

The staff had seemed incredibly simple, but that was deceptive. Proper usage required very specific stances, grips, positions, and the constant drilling of combat sets— low, middle and high strikes and blocks, repeated again and again until it was burned into her mind. After that, Amethyst taught her how to avoid flinching when an enemy staff came at her, how to tell which block would be required, when there was an opening to strike back, when to dodge or jump or roll…

The work was _painful_. Pearl hadn't expected that.

She wasn't used to pain. Not really. There were times in the Kindergarten when she'd fallen or gotten a scrape, but her physical form had always healed quickly. It could get very hot or cold at times, but she'd always been able to push that discomfort away. The pain of combat training was something else entirely. It was never ending. Her hands developed blisters where she gripped the staff; her legs, arms and torso ached constantly; she was always developing bruises from when Amethyst managed to find an opening and whack her, which was often.

It was exhausting and repetitive, but Pearl refused to give up.

After she had proved to have gained 'basic competency' with the staff, Pearl began training on other weapons. She started with knives— similar to the staff in certain respects, except range was sacrificed for sharpness and greater damage potential. There were whips, which obviously was Amethyst's area of greatest expertise, but which felt horribly clumsy in Pearl's hand. Whips had a myriad of uses— catching enemies, incapacitating them, damaging them, pulling them into closer range— but they would never quite do what Pearl wanted them. Flails similarly felt too chaotic for her taste. She did better with a bow and arrow; she enjoyed the precision of aiming for a specific target, and the satisfaction when she hit it. She liked the sheer weight of a war-hammer, though she had to admit that even the smallest ones in Amethyst's collection were a little too heavy for her, and left her feeling unbalanced whenever she used them. Axes were good too, though they lacked some of the dexterity she enjoyed.

But her favourite weapon, by far, was the sword.

In some ways, they were very much like staffs— similar weight, range, and technique. But they were so much _more_. They came in dozens of varieties, all with different weaknesses and strengths. All of them, though, had a wicked edge. They felt wonderful in her hand, strong and secure and deadly.

She could understand why Rose Quartz had chosen it as her weapon.

As she practiced with the sword, running through seemingly infinite sets of repetitive drills, her mind filled with fantasies.

Fantasies of standing before a mighty beast, a giant blade of brilliant pink in her hand, twirling around it as she sliced the monster into ribbons.

oOo

Though Amethyst was her primary arms instructor, the other two Gems would drop in on lessons, as well. Garnet would usually watch silently, expression inscrutable, only to eventually provide some soft praise and gentle suggestions for improvements. Rose Quartz, in comparison, was far more boisterous, always cheering or shouting out encouragement, clapping furiously once a training set was finished.

Pearl enjoyed their company. They were far more pleasant to be around than the serious and glum-faced Amethyst. But their presence could be disconcerting, as well. When Garnet and Rose were watching, she always felt more hesitant, afraid of messing up— of showing that perhaps she didn't deserve to become a warrior after all. And Rose's compliments… they made her feel dizzy and strange in a way she could scarcely explain.

Most of Pearl's times outside of lessons was spent with Rose. They could sit for hours, talking, or go for long walks. They enjoyed swimming together. Pearl had finally managed to summon enough bravery to put her head below the water, and found herself in a strange world unlike anything she could have imagined— a world where gravity wasn't quite right, where shiny little animals swam in shimmering shoals, where strange underwater plants swayed in gentle currents.

She was learning a lot about how this world worked. It was filled with organic creatures, which functioned very differently from Gems. They came in a myriad of forms. Some breathed air; others breathed water. Some could walk, some could fly, some could swim— others could do all three. There were lifeforms so small that they couldn't even been seen without advanced technology, while others could be larger than trees. Rose Quartz promised to take her to see one of those, one day.

For all their complexities, Earth life had its weakness. Gems took an incredibly long time to form, as they absorbed enough energy from the ground around them to allow them to survive perpetually after emerging. Organic life, in comparison, reproduced very quickly, but died quickly, too. They were constantly searching out for new forms of energy— whether that was taking it passively from sunlight, digesting plants, or even hunting other creatures. They were constantly releasing waste products of the things they ingested. The whole process seemed very exhausting and messy to Pearl, but fascinating despite it all.

"They're not very intelligent, are they?" Pearl commented one day, as she and Rose watched a pair of seagulls fighting over a dead crab.

"They're very good at getting what they need," said Rose. "But yes, they do lack the intelligence of us Gems. Although some are brighter than others. And there's one species in particular…"

Rose trailed off, an odd note in her voice. Pearl looked at her, curious, waiting for her to continue. Quite suddenly, Rose climbed to her feet, a look of excitement on her face.

"Pearl," she said, "would you like to meet some humans?"

oOo

Pearl wasn't sure what to expect as Rose Quartz lead her on a long trek away from the temple, on a question to find some 'humans'.

She asked what exactly these animals were, but Rose was being less helpful than usual. She seemed almost giddy, bouncing with excitement as she gave half-explanations. Humans were a type of organic creature, but they were different than other animals, somehow. Like Gems, but not. Clever and sweet. Pearl wanted more, but Rose just shook her head and said she'd need to see for herself.

Finally, they crested a low hill, and looking down into the valley below… Pearl saw.

 _What_ she saw, exactly, took a little while to work out. Buildings, to start. The first buildings she'd ever seen aside from the Temple. They stood out stark and strange against the rolling green fields. They were ordered, they were organised- they were _civilisation_.

But it was very different from any kind of civilisation Pearl had imagine, during her long period of waiting n the Kindergarten. These buildings were very different from the Temple that the Crystal Gems were still in the process of building. These structures were small and simple, and not carved out of sturdy rock. Some appeared to be plant material, somehow pressed together into layers, while others were more like flimsy sheets strung up over frames. All the structures were small, and arranged in a loose circle.

There were figures moving about the structures. Some were smaller and four legged, while others were…

Gems?

They _looked_ like Gems. They walked upright on two legs, and had two arms, and flat faces with eyes, ears, a nose and a mouth. But before Pearl could get herself too caught up with excitement, she began to notice other differences, small and subtle.

Gems came in a variety of colours. These did not. Or rather, there was variety, it was just… limited. Rather than a rainbow of hues, every individual's skin was some shade of tan or brown.

Even then, it could have been possible that these were all simply examples of a single Gem type, but as Rose and Pearl drew closer, it became clear that this couldn't be the case. Aside from the limited colour scheme— brown skin and black hair for everyone— these creatures had too many differences to all belong to a single Gem model. They were dressed in a myriad of different styles, boasting a huge variety of different colours and symbols— but then, Pearl had never seen a single animal which wore clothes. Some kept their hair long, or tied in intricate designs, while others wore it short. Some were tall and broad shouldered, some slender, some curved, some angular; there were some who stood stooped, and some who were shorter and smaller than even Amethyst.

And, of course, not a single one had a gemstone.

Still, the resemblance was uncanny. "They look just like us!"

"Amazing, isn't it?" said Rose Quartz. "Come, let's go say hello!"

Pearl, suddenly overcome with shyness, would have much preferred to watch from a distance— but Rose took off down the hill, and Pearl, who was hardly going to stay out there on her own, had no choice to follow. Even with gravity's help, she struggled to keep up with Rose. She barely noticed the loud horn calls that went up from the encampment at their approach.

She did notice, of course, when she and Rose suddenly found themselves surrounded by people on all sides, chattering and yelping and making such a noise. Pearl pressed herself close to Rose, wishing she could vanish into the folds of her dress. It was more people than she'd ever seen in her life. The only think that was stopping her from bolting was that the humans didn't seem threatening; they were loud, but their faces wore broad smiles, and Rose was greeting them warmly.

For several long moments the humans' utterances sounded like meaningless noise, no different from the caws of seagulls or squeaks of bats. Then the automatic translation software in her gem began to process it, and out of the cacophony came sense.

"…honoured to see you again," one human, particularly well dressed, was saying to Rose.

Pearl gaped.

The humans had _language_.

"The honour is ours, I assure you," Rose said with a laugh. "How goes it for your people?"

"As well as it can be," the same human answered. From their bearing, height, and impressive clothing, Pearl deduced that they must be the humans' leader. "Weather is fair and the fishing is good."

"Glad to hear it." Rose nudged at Pearl. "Stand up, dear, and introduce yourself."

She hesitated, stuttering a little. Then she straightened, clasped her hands to her chest, and bowed her head in deference to the human leader. "I am Pearl, ma'am."

For some reasons, the humans laughed. Pearl blushed.

She couldn't resit as she was swept away on a current of human bodies, carried away into the camp. One of the four legged animals sniffed at her, then bounded away, as Pearl was sat on a log around a strange pit filled with wood. Pearl was just staring at the pit, trying to divine what kind of purpose it could hold, when a human stepped up to it, and began quickly striking two pieces of stone against each other. Sparks flew, again and again; finally one hit a log, which after a few moments, burst into flames. Heat like Pearl had never felt pressed against her. Soon the entire pile was aflame, and the celebrations began.

It was overwhelming. And _loud_. Everyone was talking at once— to each other, to Rose, to her. Pearl tried to answer, but half the time she was at a loss for words. Then things simple began to get odder and odder yet. Plant products and animal carcasses were laid on top of the flames, filling the air with the biting smell of burning flesh. At the same time, strange vessels were being handed out to everyone. Pearl thanked the human who gave her one, then held it awkwardly, unsure what she was meant to do. Then another human came around with a large pitcher, and starting pouring a liquid— water?— into each. For a moment she was mystified, until the humans began to drink from their cups. Yes, now she recalled. Organic life required water for survival.

They required other kinds of sustenance, too, and it seemed that humans were a species that ate both plants and other animals. That, it turned out, was why the carcasses and roots had been put onto the flames. While every other species Pearl had yet been introduced to simply ate their meal as soon as they found it, humans performed a preparation ritual beforehand. She wondered why. Did it improve the food in some way? Was it a form of entertainment?

She was still wondering this until a small human came and stood before her, and held out a flat disc of wood. On top of it was a slice of meat, and what could only be some kind of mashed plant pump. "Uhhh— thank you," Pearl said, and took it. She noticed everyone around the fire was watching her closely. There was expectation on their faces. "Oh. Oh, am I meant to— to eat it?"

A chorus of agreement went up all around. Pearl prodded the food delicately with a finger. It seemed awfully rude to refuse. But how was she supposed to…?

"You put it in your mouth and chew," Rose said, grinning.

Pearl looked into Rose's lovely face, and didn't want to disappoint her. She picked up some of the pulp in her hand. It was gooey and warm. She raised it to her mouth, popped it in—

— and immediately spat it out.

Pearl's face turned blue with horror. She hadn't been able to help it— the goop had just felt so disgusting and _wrong_ inside of her— but it had been a gift and she'd thrown it right back at them— and "Sorry, sorry!"

The humans' shocked expressions turned to amusement. "It's quite fine," the closest one said. "We understand that your kind do not always enjoy the food of mortals."

They took away the food and the water, and Pearl slumped with relief.

Rose seemed to be enjoying herself, chatting happily and eating with relish, but Pearl was just feeling overwhelmed. She was hoping that she could spend the rest of the outing just observing, when yet _another_ human approached. This was one of the small ones, with a proportionately huge head and big eyes. They stared up at her with an expression of awe. "Ex'use me," they said, in a voice that sounded clumsy even after translation, "are yew a cwystal warrior?"

"Uh…" said Pearl.

Rose leaned down so that she was closer to the human's eye level. "She is indeed, little one! Pearl is my newest warrior!"

"In training!" Pearl added hastily. "I'm still just learning!"

The human's mouth went round. "Me too!"

They pulled a knife out from their belt— a very small and basic one, very blunt— it probably couldn't even break skin. Chest puffing out, they said, "When I grow up I'm gonna be a hunter and catch buffalo and fight enemies!"

"Oh. Well. I'm sure you'll be… very impressive?"

Uncertainty rang in Pearl's tone, but the little human hardly seemed to notice— they just ran off to boast to some others about how a _real_ 'cwystal warrior' said that they were _impressive_ , didn't you hear?

There was a soft giggling from besides her. Pearl looked around, expecting it to be from Rose, but she found the source of the laughter to be yet another human. They'd been sitting at her side for practically the entire evening, but Pearl hadn't been paying them much mind. They were one of the taller ones. They were shaking their head with amusement, hand covering their mouth

"Not used to children?" they asked.

"Children?" Pearl repeated, suddenly remembering the word— Amethyst had said it once before. "What's that?"

The human's eyes crinkled up at the corners. "You don't know?"

"No," Pearl admitted.

"Huh. Well. I knew your people were strange, but I never thought— never mind. I suppose I had better explain."

The human did, and Pearl listened intently. She she did, she took a closer look at them. This human was one of the larger ones— not the largest, but nearly as tall as Garnet, perhaps. They had a large, flat nose, and a small mouth. Their chest was not flat like some of the humans', but rather covered in two fleshy bumps, like Rose's but significantly smaller. They were quite pretty, Pearl decided.

The explanations they provided were very clearly explained, and interesting. 'Children', it turned out, were young humans— they were not created fully formed, but rather began very small, weak, and uninformed. The older humans worked hard to protect and raise them. Pearl hadn't realised that organic life cycles were so complicated.

"So you were a 'child' yourself?" Pearl said, once the human had finished. It seemed quite hard to imagine someone so tall and collected being anything like the smaller, yelping humans running around.

"I was indeed. Feels like it was only yesterday." They shook their head. "Anyway, your name's Pearl, right? Mine's Oota Dabun."

Pearl frowned. "Name?"

"Yes? What people call you?" The human snorted. "Don't tell me you don't know what names are, either?"

"No, I think I get it," said Pearl. It was an identifier. She looked around the campfire, trying to spot someone else that matched Oota Dabun in appearance, but didn't see any. "Are there others of you?"

Oota Dabun tilted their head. "Other people with my name? Yes. But none here."

Pearl nodded. "Same as with me."

Oota Dabun seemed somewhat puzzled by this, and it looked as though she might press further… except, at that moment, a strange noise began to feel the air. A loud beating sound. It seems to reverberate through the air, through the stone, into the very core of her being.

"Wha—" began Pearl, then she saw the source. The humans! They had brought out devices, instruments— some were blowing into long, curved shapes, others were beating circular frames of hide. Others had no instruments, but their voices were rising up, up, into the night sky like smoke from the fire, deep and resonant and strangely beautiful. Something inside her felt as though it was being pulled, as if it was pulsing.

"Would you like to dance?" Oota Dabun asked.

"Dance?"

The human gestured around her, at how everyone— Rose Quartz included— had already risen to their feet, and were begin to move to the music, swaying and stamping in rhythm. Looking down, Pearl found her foot was already tapping to the beat. It was irresistible, impossible to ignore.

Oota Dabun grabbed her hand and tugged at it. Her smile was a crescent-moon against her dark face, warm and inviting in the fire's glow. So Pearl smiled back at her, and danced with the humans.


	7. Discovery

**Chapter Seven: Discovery**

Soon Pearl's life was filled with _things happening_.

There was always something to do. She trained with Amethyst, weapon after weapon after weapon. She grew steadily better with each, feeling strong and steady when she held them in her hands.

She practiced summoning her own weapon, in the ways that all the other Gems had taught her. All of them still failed to work, which was horribly frustrating. Yet somehow it could be relaxing, too. Garnet's method especially. It was peaceful.

The Crystal Gems began taking her on missions. At first, she just watched the fights with Gem monsters, learning and admiring the warriors' techniques. Then she was allowed to join in the fights herself, and while she was shaky and slow compared to the others, she was still _something_. Still useful, even just a little bit.

On their missions, they warped to new, fascinating places. After the battles are finished, artefacts secured, Rose— and Garnet— always gave Pearl a chance to explore. Even stuffy Amethyst came along sometimes. There were such amazing places to see. A flat, stretched out land of orange dirt, filled with creatures in the most bizarre of shapes. Long necks, or dizzying stripes, or prehensile nose— those ones were even bigger than _Rose_! A place so cold that the ocean had frozen over completely, and all the animals came in pure white so as to blend in. Forests so thick with trees and vines that Pearl could barely move through them, where the air was filled with humidity, and the hoots and songs of creatures unseen. Rivers of roaring water, mountains of bubbling lava, canyons of vibrant red. There was so **much**.

Pearl saw… other things, too. Magnificent buildings, magical Temples. Many damaged. All abandoned.

They fascinated her. Pearl desperately wanted to learn more, and many times, she nearly asked, but each time, something stopped her.

There was a heaviness to these places. Sometimes, Amethyst would stop in front of one, and just stare at the ruins, speechless. Garnet would walk past them without sparing them a glance. Even Rose, who was otherwise always overflowing with enthusiasm, went stony and silent around them, sometimes.

Pearl wanted to know, but she wasn't sure if she'd like what she learned.

There were other things to learn about, though. Pearl learned about the Earth, its animals and its plants. She learned about magic— how to make her gem glow and project images, how to activate warp pads.

Then she asked about how the warp pads worked, where did the streams go, how were they powered? She wondered how birds flew, how did volcanoes keep hot, what were stars were made of, how far away were they, how could interstellar travel be accomplished?

The questions went on and on and on. The Crystal Gems did their best to answer them all, but sometimes even they didn't know. Rose began returning from those missions still too dangerous for Pearl to go on with scrolls, scripts and texts to read. Pearl poured over them, learning all that they could teach her.

She and Rose visited with the humans a fair amount, as well. And when Rose and the others were busy, Pearl would sometimes go alone.

The humans were confusing— but entreatingly so. Pearl never quite knew what to expect with them. Rose helped explain, but so did Oota Dabun. Her explanations were always straightforward and clear. Pearl appreciated that. Rose was wonderful, but she had a habit of getting sidetracked, slipping into poetry, or going off on a tangent and getting completely distracted from the original subject.

But if Pearl noticed some human activity which made no sense, Pearl would simply and plainly explain what it was, then teach her how to do it herself. "We always need more hands," she would say.

('She', not 'they'. That was something Pearl had learned about humans. There were two main types: women and men. While women used 'she' and 'her' like Gems did, men used 'he' and 'him'. There were other humans who apparently used _both_ pronouns, or others entirely, but already this system had seemed needlessly complicated to Pearl, who had trouble distinguishing any of these apparently important but subtle identity markers).

So Pearl learned human things, too, from Oota Dabun. How to carve, to stitch, to weave, to start fires, to track animals, to ride horses, to catch fish, to tell when a storm was approaching. Though she still found eating unpleasant, Pearl nonetheless learned how to prepare food. Once she was shown how, she could cut roots and vegetables with a speed that had human onlookers gasping in awe.

That was a nice feeling. Nothing she did could impress her fellow Gems quite like that.

oOoOo

Amethyst was staring at a rock.

It was a good rock, all things considered. Nothing fancy, but good. Solid. A nice size for a satisfying throw. Kinda smooth, but still with some edges. Grey. That was a good rock colour.

"Stop that," said Garnet.

"What?" said Amethyst. "I'm not doing anything!"

"You're tapping your foot."

Amethyst looked down. Sure enough, she was. She hadn't noticed. "So? I can tap my foot. I'm a free Gem."

"Hm."

There was a stretch of silence, punctuated only by the sound of foot tapping.

"You're upset," Garnet set.

"Huh? No. I'm just _bored_. When's Rose getting back? And Pearl," she added, belatedly.

"You could have gone with them," Garnet said.

"Pfft? To watch humans?" Amethyst snorted. "I'll stay here, thanks."

Garnet stared at her with an inscrutable expression. She said, "You don't like Pearl."

"Wh—what? Yes I do! Or, I mean, I don't _dislike_ her. She's fine."

And she was. Really. Definitely not a Homeworld spy, like Amethyst had originally been afraid of. And not some mindless drone, either. She was actually pretty smart. Learned quickly. Might even make a decent fighter someday, if she kept training.

The endless parade of questions was annoying, though. Who'd of thought that a _Pearl_ could be such a chatter mouth?

"She's fine," Amethyst repeated.

"Then don't act so grumpy around her," said Garnet.

"I don't."

Garnet crossed her arms. Amethyst sighed heavily.

"Look. I do like Pearl, really. It's just." Amethyst scuffed her foot against the cave floor. "Why does Rose have to spend all her time with her?"

"She's young. New. She has a lot to learn. Rose is excited to teach her."

"Yeah, obviously. But she's not some baby bird. She's a _Gem_. She doesn't need constant supervision."

 _Rose doesn't need to be with her all the time._

Garnet came to stand at Amethyst's side, leaning against the cave wall. "You want her to spend time with you, instead."

Amethyst opened her mouth to make sharp retort, but nothing came out. Garnet was right. She did.

She remembered how it had been, before. After they'd first ran off, after they'd first chose to rebel. Before Garnet, before Bismuth, or Biggs, or any of the others. Just the two of them, giddy with freedom, exploring Earth and all it had to offer.

"We were so busy during the war," said Amethyst. "I thought that after it was over, we'd finally have time for each other. But we're still busy— with building, and clean up, and catching those corrupted _freaks_ —"

Garnet laid a hand on her friend's head— the only part of her that she could easily reach. "Tell Rose how you feel."

"I can't." Amethyst stared down at the rock. "It's petty. Stupid."

"If it was stupid, it wouldn't bother you so much." Garnet gave Amethyst a hearty pat on the head. "Talk to her. It'll help."

"You think?"

"I know."

Amethyst rain her hand through her hair. "Fine. But I'll need a time when Pearl's not around."

"Leave that to me," said Garnet. "There's something I've been meaning to talk to her about."

oOoOo

Pearl sat and shifted, trying to find a comfortable position on the grass, which was starting to turn a scratchy yellow in the long summer heat. Eventually she gave up, and resolved to ignore the itchiness. She looked at Garnet, sitting across from her. "What did you want to show me?" she asked. "Is this about weapon summoning?"

"Nope," Garnet said. She was smiling. That was unusual. Garnet didn't smile a lot. "I wanted to ask you a question, actually."

"Ah… okay."

"You know about different Gem types," Garnet said. That was more of a statement than a question, but Pearl nodded anyway. She had a lot of programmed knowledge about Gem models. She knew about Diamonds, of course, and Quartzes, but also Turquoises, Topazes, Pyrites, Morganites, Onyxes… Pearl was about to start reciting what she knew when Garnet said, "Do you recognise _me_?"

"Er… no," Pearl confessed. She blushed.

That was another thing that had been nagging at her. Pearl hadn't been able to place Garnet, or her exact purpose. Although, it seemed that purpose didn't actually matter very much. Nonetheless, the no knowing bothered her. Automatically Pearl's hand reached up to her forehead, tracing the misshapen, oblong edges of her gem.

Garnet took Pearl's hand to stop her, and gently pulled it back down. "It's alright," she said. "I don't expect you to know what I am." She smiled even wider. "I'm a fusion."

"A fusion?" Pearl said. She wracked her mind for information, but nothing came up.

Garnet held out her hands, palms up. There was a gem in her right hand… and another on her left. Two.

Pearl frowned. She'd noticed Garnet's gem positioning, known it was in her palm, but somehow she'd never noticed that Garnet had had _two_ of them. She hadn't even known that was possible.

Two. Pearl thought about that, and thought about the word 'fusion', what it meant. Multiple things, combined into one.

"Perhaps I'd better demonstrate," said Garnet, and there was amusement in her voice. She took off her glasses and winked.

She then promptly dissolved into white light.

Pearl would have panicked, but she didn't have time. Instead she stared, open mouthed, as the light resolved into two smaller ones, one red, one blue. The two lights focused, condensed, and turned into Gems. They smiled at her.

"Hello," said Ruby and Sapphire, together.

oOoOo

Amethyst stood on a vein of the Crystal Heart, staring up into the soft pink light above. She took a deep breath then shouted, "Rose!"

"Amethyst?" came Rose's reply, a little distracted.

"Can I come up?"

"Of course!"

Amethyst gripped the vein and scrambled up it, emerging a moment later into a field of clouds. Rose stood not far away, surrounded by a floating flock of… birds?

No, not birds. Weird, leafy bulbs in colours of green, brown, and rusty red. They orbited Rose like little planets, while the mighty Gem held another one in her hand. That particular one may have been real, but it was always hard to tell in this place.

"What are these?" Amethyst asked.

"Onions!"

"Onions."

"Yes, a vegetable, see here." Rose pulled Amethyst close to look. "When you pull away these dry leaves, you find the juicy part inside. It's very bitter raw— it only becomes sweet when cooked."

"Neat," said Amethyst, who could never help but be endeared by Rose's newest horticultural obsessions.

"But that isn't even the best part!" Rose dug her nails into the onion's flesh, then shoved it into Amethyst's face.

Amethyst peered closer, trying to find what Rose wanted to show her— but then backed away quickly as a sharp stinging filled her eyes. "Woah! _Ow_!"

"It makes you cry!" cried Rose gleefully. "It makes you cry, and humans _still eat it_!"

"Well. That's something," Amethyst said, because there wasn't much else that could be said in the face of humans' unflinching weirdness. "Useful, though."

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"Well, like, if you're ever having trouble with the healing tears…"

"Oh! Oh, very clever, Amethyst!"

Amethyst beamed under the praise. Even now, the smallest of Rose's compliments still filled her with warmth. She would have happily kept on the conversation about onions, just to keep that warmth alight. But…

Amethyst pulled away, pushing some of the floating vegetables aside. "Rose," she said. "What do you think of Pearl?"

"Pearl? Why do you ask?"

Amethyst shrugged.

"Oh, well— she's certainly something, isn't she?" said Rose. "Very bright, very sweet. Always searching for new things to learn. She's been picking up combat quickly— you've been teaching her well." A dark cloud passed across her bright face. "We could have used more like her in the war…"

Amethyst's hands curled into fists. She knew the dangers of 'what ifs', and refused to delve into them just then. "Is that… all?"

"All?" Rose looked quite puzzled.

"I mean… do you…" Amethyst floundered, as she so often did, with things like this. There were never the right words. "Do you _like_ her?"

"Of course I do!"

Amethyst scowled. "I mean— the way Ruby and Sapphire do." Wait— no, that wasn't right. "The way… _you and I_ …"

Rose's eyes turned soft. "Amethyst… what's brought this on?"

"I—" Amethyst's face was hot. "It's just— the way she _looks_ at you."

Rose blinked. She appeared quite taken aback. "Looks at me?"

Amethyst gave her a pointed look.

"Oh… oh dear. Do you really think…?"

"Yeah," said Amethyst. "And, well, you two have been spending a lot of time together."

"Ah. Well." Rose was blushing, and no matter the circumstance, that was always a rare pleasure to see. "I certainly didn't intend… In that case, I may have to talk to her… Oh, but you needn't worry." Rose bent down, cupping Amethyst's small face in her huge hands. "There's no one quite like you, my Amethyst."

"Well, yeah," Amethyst said, blushing deep purple herself. "Obviously. Just good to hear, y'know?"

Rose laughed.

Amethyst laughed too. "I can't same I blame Pearl," said Amethyst. "You really are _amazing_."

There was a cascade of pink curls as Rose Quartz swept Amethyst up into her arms. "So are you!"

And then they were giggling helplessly, and spinning, dizzy, lips being pressed against lips… there was a flash, a purple cloud blooming among the pink.

Smoky Quartz stood, stretching her arms up, cracking the knuckles on two of her hands. She blew a lock of hair out of her face and grinned. "Just like old times."

oOoOo

 **Author's Note:** Please- take a moment to consider Pearl riding a horse.

(Yeeeeah i know all the horses in the America went extinct 11 thousand years ago. this is a world where pangea split apart differently and flordia doesn't exist. let me have this. horses survived in this 'verse.)


End file.
